May 2006 Update

Dear Friends, There is a lot in the wind this month. The whole World seems agog over the claims of The Da Vinci Code. Certainly many in the church have rightfully declared Dan Brown’s premise (that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene and bore him offspring) as heretical lies.

However, there is little new under the sun as Mormons have been claiming this for over a 100 years - even declaring that Joseph Smith is the direct descendant of Jesus’ marriage to Mary Magdalene!

Though the book’s allegations are truly disturbing, we should look at the fervor from the author and the anti-Christian media to present the book and movie as “historical fact” as a sort of blessing. I have personally had the opportunity to discuss the truth about Jesus with a number of people who would have never listened to the gospel without this book/film media campaign prompting them. Please use the issue wisely and peacefully to tell people about Jesus.

Along with this comes a report that the Masons have now dropped in their US membership from over 6,000,000 to about 1,700,000 registered Masons. Other Masonic reports imply that less than 25% are active… bringing the realistic total to only about 425,000. While we might be content to relax and wait for the elderly membership to die off, we cannot. The Masons are now heavily recruiting at the high school and young adult levels, hoping to infuse the craft with breathing bodies.

Polygamy is a big thing in the news and on TV right now. Our email box is filling up with people trying to get the facts on what the Mormons really think about it. Now we hear that Mitt Romney (the Mormon governor of Massachusetts) is making news as he plans for a run at the White House.

Everyday, we have new doors of witness opening for us. It is an exciting time! Hang in there with us as we use all these public commotions to reach out and see many more people get to go to heaven.

In addition, as always, we urgently need your partnership, your prayers and your financial support.

Please write us a note, and please consider giving a gift of support and let us know you are standing strong with us in this battle for souls.
(To give a gift instantaneously, visit our home page and click the "give a donation" link on the left side.)

Your Brother in Christ,

Ed Decker

The DaVinci Code by author Dan Brown is a best-selling novel with movie following in May, 2006. The plot undermines the essential beliefs about the origins of Christianity. Though it poses as a fictional novel, it begins with a Fact page: “All descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents, and secret rituals in this novel are accurate.” Yet, many of the descriptions are inaccurate, misleading, and fabrications. Below is a partial list of errors the book purports along with brief refutations.

1. The Louvre Pyramid has 666 window panes corresponding with the number of Satan (p.21). Not true. There are 673 and have nothing to do with Satan.¹

2. The Dead Sea Scrolls were found in the 1950’s, tell the true Grail story, speak of Christ’s ministry in human terms, and survived Emperor Constantine’s plot to destroy them (p.234). They were actually discovered in the 1940’s, say nothing about the Grail story, confirm the authenticity of the Old Testament, and had nothing to do with Emperor Constantine.

3. The Christian story of the Magi bringing baby Jesus gifts was borrowed from a Hindu story about Krishna (p.232). Ancient Hinduism has no such story.

4. The scientist Robert Boyle was a Grand Master of the Priory of Sion, thus against formal and historical Christianity (p.326). Rather, he was a devoted Christian. For instance he wrote: “The Christian Religion brings mankind diverse positive Benefits, such as are, more cleare and extensive knowledg of God, and divine things; the Remission of Sins; the Favour of God; severall graces and vertues suitable to mens respective needs and conditions; and above all, a happy Immortality in the Life to come.”² (Old English)

5. Leonardo DaVinci was a flamboyant homosexual (p.45). According to most of his biographers, he was falsely accused of this. DaVinci was celibate, non-sexual. None of his massive writings indicate any sexual activity. He wrote, “Intellectual passion drives out sensuality.”³

6. The Last Supper painting by Leonardo DaVinci supplies hidden codes and Mary Magdalene sits next to Jesus (p.243). The painting is a scene from John 13:21-24. DaVinci did not include Mary Magdalene. John is youthful looking because he was the youngest. Florentine artists of DaVinci’s period often characterized young, unmarried men with feminine facial features to contrast with older, breaded men with rougher features. DaVinci’s painting of John the Baptist is similar.

7. Jesus’ marriage to Mary Magdalene is of historical record (p.244), and they had a daughter named Sarah whom Mary bore in

France

(p.255). They were not married and there is no such historical record. The strong ancient tradition regarding Mary Magdalene is that after Jesus’ death and resurrection she went to Italy. There she witnessed to Tiberius about the resurrection of Christ and preached the gospel throughout Italy. The legend of her having a child in France did not emerge until the ninth century. Tradition says Lazarus and his sisters Martha and Mary went to France.

8. The Merovingian bloodline is from Christ and there are descendents today named Plantard and Saint-Clair. The ancient secret society of the Priory of Sion holds this knowledge (pp.257, 442). According to the early Church fathers (Clement, Tertullian, Athenagoras, Methodius and numerous others) Jesus was a virgin all of His life, never married, and had no offspring. The ancient Priory of Sion was not secret and rather unremarkable.⁴

9. 80 gospels were considered for the New Testament. Constantine chose the four current Gospels in 325 AD. The others were outlawed by him (pp.231, 234). Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were perceived as authentic from the beginning. They are referred to early on by Clement of Rome (96 AD); Polycarp (160 AD); Justin Martyr (160 AD), etc. Tatian’s Diatessaron harmonized the four prior to 170 AD.. Constantine did not choose them and His Edict of Milan in 313 gave freedom of religion.

10. Constantine never converted to Christianity. He plotted with early Church Fathers in 325 to control the empire. He was forced into baptism near the time of his death (pp.231-235). Constantine converted in 312 when he saw a vision in the sky during a battle campaign. Only 10 percent of the population was Christian in 325 so there was no political advantage. He was baptized near death as was the custom in those days in that part of the empire.

11. Thousands of ancient documents chronicled Jesus life as merely a moral man (p.234). Where’s the proof of Brown’s claim. Even many of the erroneous Gnostic apocryphal books revere Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior (i.e. Gospel of Thomas, The Acts of Peter and the Twelve Apostles, The Dialogue of the Savior).

12. Before the Council of Nicaea in 325 nobody thought Jesus was God (p.233). From the beginning, Christians understood that Jesus was the Son of God, thus God, “Immanuel – God with us” (Matthew 1:23). Clement, Aristides, Polycarp, Justin Martyr, Athenagoras, Irenaeus, etc. all wrote in terms of Jesus being divine.

13. Jesus never claimed to be God (p.232). False, here is Matthew 26:63-64 in which the high priest was interrogating Jesus: “And the high priest answered and said to Him, ‘I put You under oath by the living God: Tell us if You are the Christ, the Son of God!’ Jesus said to him, ‘It is as you said. Nevertheless, I say to you, hereafter you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Power, and coming on the clouds of heaven.’" Jesus also said, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die.” (John 11:25-26).

14. Thousands of documents and tens of thousands of pages of Sangreal documents from the first few centuries chronicle Jesus life as a mortal man and reveal His bloodline (pp.234, 256).This is a complete fabrication. Dan Brown, show us the proof?

15. Jesus’ death and resurrection were from a myth and his followers knew he was only a mortal man (pp.232-233). Not true. Here are two of his followers: Tertullian (207 AD): Against Marcion “God lived with men as man that man might be taught to live the divine life; God lived on man’s level, that man might be able to live on God’s level: God was found weak, that man might become most great. If you disdain a God like this, I doubt if you can wholeheartedly believe in a God who was crucified.”⁵ Clement (96 AD): 1^st Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians “Think, my dear friends, how the Lord offers proof after proof that there is going to be a resurrection, of which He has made Jesus Christ the first-fruits by raising Him from the dead.”⁶

Orson Hyde, an apostle of the LDS church, taught that he was. "Gentlemen, that is as plain as the translators, or different councils over this Scripture, are allow it to go to the world, but the thing is there; it is told; Jesus was the bridegroom at the marriage of Cana of Galilee, and he told them what to do... Now there was actually a marriage; and if Jesus was not the bridegroom on that occasion, please tell who was. If any man can show this, and prove that it was not the Savior of the world, then I will acknowledge I am in error. We say it was Jesus Christ who was married, to be brought into the relation whereby he could see his seed, before he was crucified." (JOURNAL OF DISCOURSES, vol. 2, p.82)

Jedediah M. Grant, second counselor to Brigham Young, agreed: "The grand reason why the Gentiles and philosophers ...persecuted Jesus Christ, was because he had so many wives; there were Elizabeth and Mary and a host of others that followed him." (JOURNAL OF DISCOURSES, vol. 1, pp.345-46)

Orson Pratt, Apostle and member of Council of Twelve, said this “We have now clearly shown that God, the Father had a plurality of wives, one or more being in eternity, by whom He begat our spirits as well as the spirit of Jesus His First Born... We have also proved most clearly that the Son followed the example of his Father, and became the great Bridegroom to whom kings' daughters and many honorable Wives to be married." (THE SEER, p.172-173)

Brigham Young, second prophet of the LDS church, said: "The Scripture says that He, the Lord, came walking in the Temple, with "his train; I do not know who they were, unless his wives and children;" (JOURNAL OF DISCOURSES, vol. 13, p.309)

In the Church Newspaper, it was taken for granted that he was married.". . .we apprehend that even greater troubles than these may arise before mankind learn all the particulars of Christ's incarnation-how and by whom he was begotten; the character of the relationships formed by the act; the number of wives and children he had. . ." (The Millennial Star, 1853, vol. 15, p.825)

This LDS Scripture is used to show that Joseph Smith was not only in Christ’s lineage, but also rightful heir to His power.

WHO is the stem of Jesse spoken of in .. Isaiah? 2. Verily thus saith the Lord: It is Christ. 3. What is the rod spoken of in the first verse of the 11th chapter of Isaiah, that should come of the Stem of Jesse? 4. Behold, thus saith the Lord: It is a servant in the hands of Christ, who is partly a descendant of Jesse as well as of Ephraim, or of the house of Joseph, on whom there is laid much power. 5. What is the root of Jesse spoken of in the 10th verse of the 11th chapter? 6. Behold, thus saith the Lord, it is a descendant of Jesse, as well as of Joseph, unto whom rightly belongs the priesthood, and the keys of the kingdom, for an ensign, and for the gathering of my people in the last days. (D & C 113: 1-6)

Observe the wording of D & C 113, which says the stem (Joseph Smith) as well as the root (Joseph Smith) was a descendant of Jesse, as well as of Joseph (2 Ne. 3:15 also identifies Joseph Smith as a descendant of Joseph). We know that Jesus Christ was a descendant of Jesse as well, according to the genealogy in the Gospel of Matthew. That clearly means that Jesus Christ had to have had children, since Joseph Smith is a descendant of not only Joseph of old and Jesse, the Father of King David, but is also a descendant of Jesus Christ. Now that is a family tie-in.

It is no wonder to any believing Mormon that Joseph Smith was chosen as the Prophet for the Restoration... of God’s eternal family, through the Atonement of Jesus Christ. God is gathering his family, the "Royal Priesthood. D & C 113:4 says this descendant of Jesse will have much power laid on him. Joseph Smith was told in a revelation, "For I have conferred upon you the keys and power of the priesthood, wherein I restore all things, and make known unto you all things in due time." (D&C 132:45)

You sit in church on Sunday, and say you are a follower of Jesus, and smile at those around you.

Yet, you also bow at the altar in the Lodge Room to the GAOTU, or Jao Bul On

5 For this you know, that no fornicator, unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. 6 Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. Eph 5:5-6

If you have a question about anything in this Newsletter or our Website, drop me an email !!!
- Ed